The perils of an accidental dimension hopper
by TS Soul
Summary: Tamashī Shiro, the (probably) immortal accidental dimension hopper and the perils of being old and eccentric. She just wants to take a nap, is that too much to ask? M rating for course language and mature(non sexual) themes: alcoholism, blood and guts, general age.
1. chapter 1

"Congratulations, everyone! The path that awaits before you is difficult and maybe even painful; but I have the utmost faith in your abilities to succeed! You may only be starting as genin, the lowest rank of ninja, but your futures are bright. I will announce your team plac—!" Iruka Umino, the graduating classes' sensei, was cut off by a loud snore coming from the back of the classroom. The young senseis' eyebrow twitched, but he reigned in his temper with some difficulty. Looking to where the offensive noise had come from only forced the twitch into a greater spasm at the sight that greeted him.

One of his brightest students was leaning back so far in her chair as she slept that it was a wonder she hadn't fallen completly, mouth hanging wide open as a loud cacophony of snores escaped. The loudness could probably be due to the angle her head was bent at, Iruka thought critically, and maybe exhaustion. The girl did practically drag herself into the classroom seconds before the warning bell rang. He sighed as the class laughed, gripping his forehead tightly.

"Kiba. Wake your classmate, please." Iruka asked warily, mindful of his injuries he had acquired the night before. The look of abject betrayal in the slightly feral boys eyes was only slightly comical, but he kept the emotion from his face anyway. Tamashī Shiro could be strangely violent if woken up suddenly. Strange in the fact that it wasn't always _violence_ per se that she reacted with. A few of the more memorable occasions consisted of turning Ino Yamanakas hair into pale yellow tentacles, Sasuke Uchihas hair into an impressive black chicken— clucking and pecking beak included—and seemingly turned ex-fellow teacher Mizukis legs into jelly. It was like all of the bones in his legs were just… _gone_. Although, with the recent development of Mizuki working for Orochimaru, Tamashī couldn't really be faulted for that last, ah incident.

At his weary request, the laughter stopped abruptly. Everyone wanted to know if something would happen this time, even the usually aloof Sasuke.

Kiba stretched out his hand, the other holding Akamaru to his chest firmly, and pushed Tamashīs chair into the proper position. Only it was done with a bit too much force, causing Tamashī shoot forwards and smack her chin into the top of the desk.

"Ugh… I bih my tong…" Tamashī voiced thickly around a mouth quickly filling with blood. One fingerless gloved hand reached up cover her mouth while the other delved into her thigh pouch and pulled out two vials, one empty and the other full of a soft blue liquid.

"Maybe you should go to the nurses office..?" Iruka spoke from the front of the class in a worried tone but Tamashī just flicked open the two vials and let the blood from her mouth leak slowly into the empty one until it was full and snapped it closed again.

" _Eww!_ Are you going to keep that?!" Sakura Haruno screeched from near the front of the room, her face scrunched in her disgust.

"Of course." She didn't elaborate. They didn't ask.

Tamashī swished the light blue potion around her mouth for a moment and then swallowed it down when she felt her tongue stitching back together, letting out a sigh at the pleasant taste. "I'm fine now." She announced, putting the vials back into the pouch. There was a vast difference to the sound of her voice, back to its original rich huskiness as it was.

"Right…" Iruka sweatdropped before clearing his throat hastily to carry on with his original speech. "I will announce the team placements now." He flipped to the next page on his clipboard, scanning the list quickly and nodding his head. As he spoke, Irukas voice took on a slightly boring, lecturing tone that Tamashī had heard in her previous 'life' by her ghostly History of Magic professor. It took all she had to not fall asleep again from preconditioning.

"–and Sakura Haruno under jonin Genma Shiranui." An inconsolable wail came from the aforementioned girl, apparently because she didn't make the team she wanted. Tamashī rolled her soft grey eyes towards the ceiling in a silent prayer for patience.

"Team seven will consist of Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki and Tamashī Shiro under jonin Kakashi Hatake." Tamashī nodded in acceptance of her placement and allowed herself to slump into her chair again, trying to drown out Narutos shouting about being put on a team with a slug on it.

"Naruto! You were placed on this team because both Sasuke and Tamashī are tied for top student. You on the other hand are dead last. Team placements are made this way to balance out the skills of the whole team. You may not like this, but you will have to work together for at least six months before you can apply to be placed on a different team."

"Why six months?" The whisper ghosted over Tamashīs ear from her right and she leaned closer to Kiba so she could answer.

"Chunin exams are held every six months. If you've applied to be placed on a diffent team, you're usually just put on a team where one of them has risen up in ranks or have died." She whispered quietly so as not to provoke Irukas wrath. Again.

"Morbid."

Tamashī shrugged, "That's the reality of being a ninja."

"Team eight: Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame and Hinata Hyuuga under jonin Kurenai Yuuhi."

"A good team." Tamashī mused quietly, "You'll get mostly courier and tracking missions."

"That's boring though." Kiba whined quietly from beside her, echoed faintly by Akamaru.

"That's life." She snickered quietly at his continued whining.

"Team ten: Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akamichi and Ino Yamanaka under jonin Asuma Sarutobi."

"What happened to team nine?" Kiba questioned her again over the sound of Ino's complaining this time.

"They're still in active duty. That genin team name will be until all the members have made chunin or the team is disbanded, then it'll be in rotation for genin teams again."

"Oh." He went silent for a moment, then: "How do you know all this? You sleep in class more than Shikamaru." He sounded indignant.

"Just because I'm 'asleep' doesn't mean I'm not listening." She threw him a sharp grin, "Also, I don't actually sleep that often."

"You're a sneaky bitch." Kiba looked kinda awed and confused, like he was trying to remember every instance Tamashī had ever 'slept' in class.

"I'll take that as a compliment, coming from you."

"Heh." Kiba blushed faintly pink and scratched the red triangle on his cheek with a clawed index finger. "Oh, my ma was asking for you actually. Wonderin when you'd come back for dinner again."

"Eh… I'll come over later, after we meet our new senseis. Will I bring that melon wine your ma likes?"

"Probably a good idea. She said something about a clan meeting before I left, so she'll be in a bad mood."

"Those damn elders." Tamashī mock growled in agitation before laughing heartily. Kiba laughed along with her, glad he didn't startle at the sound of her growling anymore; even if it was fake angry tone. The sound of it made him have a gut reaction to obey that he didn't really understand yet.

The bell for lunch time rang and they said their goodbyes, promising to meet up at the gate of the Inuzuka compound at eight, just in case they couldn't talk when lunch was over. As the class swiftly emptied except for a few stragglers, Tamashī sighed and pulled out a spiral bound notebook from her hip pouch that honestly shouldn't have fit in there.

She didn't look up when a much too smooth fist for an academy graduate slammed into the desk in front of her, nor when her second name was growled out in a frankly pathetic attempt at intimidation. She did look up slowly when the notebook was snatched out of her hands before she could even open it though; but she wasn't worried. It was sealed up to its proverbial eyeballs so only she could open it, along with other safety measures like water and fire damage.

Sakura Haruno stood in front of her with a group of girls that used to bully her until they found a different target; namely, an extremely indifferent Tamashī.

"If you think you can use this as an opportunity to get close to Sasuke-kun, then you are dead wrong." Sakura shouted as she passed the notebook to Ami by roughly shoving it into her hands.

"Yeah. You're just a little freak. A freaky little ghost orphan." Ami taunted as she went to open the book but grew frustrated when it wouldn't budge.

"Oh did you forget how to speak?" A mousey brown haired girl asked smugly, reaching forwards to yank at Tamashīs white hair. She missed because Tamashī leaned back, but the altercation was getting physical, it would have to end soon.

"Say something when your betters ask you a question!" Ami shouted in frustration, dropping the notebook to the floor and stomping on it.

"Yeah, freaky ghost orphan. Or are you afraid?" Sakura spoke again, sounding superior, but Tamashī could tell she was becoming discomfitted by her continued silence.

"Sorry did you say something?" Tamashī asked in the most dry tone of voice any of the girls in front of her have ever heard. Tamashī thought she could hear a stifled snicker from the trees outside the window, but ignored it for now. She could take a guess at who it was anyway.

Sakura gained an ugly snarl on her face as she reached forwards again to try and pull Tamashīs hair herself this time, but Tamashī was much faster and flicked her larger than average forehead with a tiny burst of chakra; causing Sakura to fall unconscious. As the pink haired girl crumpled to the floor in a heap, the others in the little heckling group decided they had had enough and fled the room, leaving their supposed 'friend' to the mercy of Tamashī.

Said girl just shook her head and opened the window fully beside her and stood up to crouch beside Sakuras unconscious form. Tamashī picked her up surprisingly gently and just tossed her out of the window to the bushes nary a foot below the sill, before picking up her trampled notebook and dashing out the window herself.

Sakura would wake up in about five minutes, so Tamashī wasn't worried about her. She also wouldn't say anything about what happened, because it would become clear that she was a bully and it could jeopardise her ninja career. Despite the fact that she didn't really take it seriously, Sakura didn't want to be at her parents mercy for longer than she absolutely had to, and being a ninja would make the transition to independence much quicker.

Tamashī knew this, because when they were both eighteen the first time, they had gotten riproaring drunk and Sakura had spilled the story of her early childhood. It made Tamashī sad to see one of her closest friends making herself into a bully to fit in, but it was understandable. In this universe, Tamashī hadn't shown up until halfway through the third year of the academy, so she didn't make friends with the painfully shy first year Sakura. In this universe, Sakura was saved from her bullies by Ino and had a falling out with her barely two years later over Sasuke. Tamashī was just an intruder, a potential rival for Sasukes affections. But when she wasn't interested in fighting over a prepubescent little boy with prepubescent little girls, she was ostracized for being a weirdo and a 'little freaky ghost orphan.'

Tamashī shook her head at that last thought. What would that group of girls think if they knew that _Sasuke_ knew they were bullying someone for being an orphan? It was like not one of them remembered that Sasukes' whole clan had been murdered. That was part of the reason he hated his fangirls. Or everyone really. They either forgot the whole reason he was 'the last Uchiha' and fawned over him or pitied him relentlessly and gave him everything he wanted.

In all the time Tamashī knew Sasuke from Before, she knew he hated getting things without working for it, hated that people forgot his families' tragedy and hated that people thought he was perfect. He wasn't, he had said so himself after the Fourth Great Shinobi War, in a quiet moment between celebrations and rebuilding, that he wasn't perfect and hated himself so much that people thought he was even after everything he had done; so much so that it was the only thing pushing him forwards sometimes, because if he didn't push… he would surely drown because of it.

Tamashī mentally shook off her morose thoughts and turned to her notebook after settling into a decently sized tree on the far side of the academy training grounds. It had sustained no damage when Ami stomped on it, except for the dirty footprint from the girls sandal. But, that was easily cleaned off with a wave of her hand. Flipping the book open exposed ideas for jutsu and seal creation in a unique cipher that Tamashī had created some fifty years ago, consisting mostly of small circles and dashes that only translated into numbers before needing a further translation to English.

She had never focused on the creation of new jutsu in her last 'life', but she found that, while not having a nack for it, it was fascinating and posed a challenge she was willing to pursue. Because really, for someone of Tamashīs true age, very few things could keep her really occupied for long. That was one of the reasons she was pretty glad her skills had diminished with the deageing of her body. Having to train herself up again gave her something to do. Something to work towards. Sure, her skill level was much higher than her original genin days, but it was nowhere near the level she was at before taking an accidental tumble into… what she _thinks_ might be an alternate reality that ran slower than her original; because she knew her father didn't know she existed yet and he was the one who brought her to Konoha the first time.

Tamashī shook her head of shaggy white hair again to focus her thoughts. _Such was the perils of getting old_ , she thought ruefully, _going off on tangents and forgetting what I was doing_.

Looking up at the sky, Tamashī guessed she had another half an hour of lunch break left and opened the last experiment she had been working on. It was an unassuming offensive and defensive jutsu that worked in a similar way the grand fire ball technique. By utilising a bit of transmutation and transfiguration, the chakra expelled by the jutsu would release a breath of razor-sharp poisonous butterflies. The mechanics were all worked out at this point, the only real block to her success was the hand signs needed to push it from being just a concept to a fully fledged jutsu. Dragon for power, Snake for stability... and then maybe Bird or Dog for a consistent flow of chakra.

"Bird is commonly used in wind release jutsu, and Dog is seen in a water release more often than not. Hmm…" Tamashī closed her eyes and tapped the end of her pencil to the page. "Will the poisonous component be gaseous or a liquid...?"

"A gas will spread farther through the air but will disperse quicker. Liquids would need to be ingested or through contact with the skin." The deep voice above her didn't even cause her to flinch, engrossed in her project as she was.

"True... the jutsu would have to be fast if I want a longer lasting effect with a liquid… or just big enough to cover a large area with a gas… hmm." Tamashī gripped her chin with the hand still holding her pencil, nearly poking her eye out in the process. "The Snake seal would add stability, while also giving it that extra boost of speed that's needed. But it's commonly a lightning seal so it wouldn't necessarily work with a water seal unless I added extra…"

"It can be used in earth jutsu as well."

"Hmm… maybe a Tiger seal instead of a Dragon for power, Snake for quick movement and stability and then… a Dog seal for a liquid. Then I can incorporate Tiger and Dog seals to make a poisonous steam, while the Snake and maybe a Hare seal add the necessary speed." She nodded and scribbled out a few circles and dashes to her page below a diagram for a monarch butterfly. "Then the transmutation of the chakra as it leaves the users body would give it poisonous components while also changing it into a physical shape for deception." Tamashī nodded again, this time decisively, and stashed away her notebook and pencil into the pouch that still seemed too small for them, took out an onigiri wrapped in plastic, then jumped out of the tree just as the bell rang for lunch to end.

Kakashi watched the girl walk away as she munched on her rice ball, still seeming to be stuck in her head thinking about complex jutsu theory that should be well above her current level.

While she hadn't really said much about the process of her jutsu, Kakashi had taken a peak at the notebook in her hand from over the top of her shaggy head of disconcerting white hair, and could reliably say that what she was working on was advanced. That was only going on the detailed diagram, distracted musings and the cipher scrawled over every available space on the page that he had seen somewhere once before.

The sight of the cipher alone made her suspicious, but the clear level of intelligence she had unknowingly displayed ticked the mental meter in his head from suspicious to possible threat.

It looked like he wouldn't get to observe his new team like Kakashi had initially been planning. He may just have to ask the Hokage some questions after all.

Decision made, Kakashi stashed his book away and, performing the necessary seals for a body flicker, reappeared outside of the double doors to the Hokages' office.

"Kakashi, come in." Hiruzen Sarutobi beckoned from beyond the doors, sounding amusedly resigned. He knew the silver haired jonin had arrived to ask questions, but thought it would take longer for the younger man to do so. He couldn't have even met his genin team yet!

"Maa, Hokage-sama, my new students…?" Kakashi trailed off purposefully, waiting for the Hokage to fill in for something he wouldn't ask.

"Close the door, Kakashi. This is a sensitive subject." The younger man complied automatically, viable eyebrow winged up marginally. Kakashi had thought something along those lines would be said, but when the Hokage immediately ordered his ANBU to leave them and then ambled towards the bookshelves, Kakashi was a bit sceptical.

"Hokage-sama…?" He asked in a generic bland tone of voice that was far more telling than if he had sounded concerned.

"Take a seat," Hiruzen stated, walking back towards his own with a manila folder in his hands. There was something telling in the way the mans hands stayed completly still. It was an unnatural stillness, like he was concentrating on what his hands contained far more then what he let on. "Your team is a tricky one, and that's only considering the two known problems on it; Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki."

"And the third?"

"Tamashī Shiro herself is not so much of a problem. She is mostly level headed and intelligent, but her circumstances are.. troubling, to say the least."

"Sir?" Kakashi was feeling mostly confused now with a tread of concern.

"She is my granddaughter."

Tamashī was back in the classroom at her seat, jutsu delema solved by the mysterious voice from earlier. So now, she's working on something else. Something that might actually be too ambitious for her current skill level in fuuinjutsu. A giant flying sake dish that could carry her and a passenger. But it was hard to concentrate with all the noise in the room currently.

"Yo. Could you tone down the cackling? I'm working on something." Naruto looked up from positioning the chalkboard eraser between the sliding door of the classroom and the wall, tilting his head curiously.

"What are you working on? School is over!" He protested indignantly, seemingly offended that she would do 'school work' when they had finished the academy.

"I'm trying to make a seal so I can fly." She deadpanned, made all the easier because that as literally what she was doing.

Narutos eyes began shining, and even Sasuke shifted in his seat with interest. "Oooh! Can I help?!" The grin on his face was infectious, and Tamashī didn't bother hiding her own smile.

"Sure, if you can understand the seals. Come over here." Tamashī was glad for the chance to get closer to him, having avoided most people in her sadness of knowing them but she being a complete unknown. It was heart breaking, seeing people you would consider family and have them not recognise you at all. The perils of being an accidental dimension hopper, and all that.

Naruto clamboured over, forgetting his prank entirely as it clattered to the floor uselessly. "Alright you have a look at this, for like, a crash course on fūinjutsu, and I'll try figure out what I'm stuck on." Tamashī said distractedly, handing him a similar notebook to the one in her hands, completly forgetting it was sealed to stay locked to anyone not of her blood family. It opened easily for him. "I'm thinking of using a Wind chakra based seal, but a more stable result would come from using Earth and Lightning to make a sort of magnet seal. It would be more work, undoubtedly so, but I think I like the probable results."

"I can make out some of these symbles, they sorta come in and out of focus and get kinda blurry if I look too hard." Tamashīs head snapped up to look at Naruto in surprise before a gleam appeared in her eyes that he couldn't identify.

"Naruto, do you have trouble reading the board sometimes?"

"Uh, no? Well not all the time. It was hard to read it when we did that thing on seals. Like regular reading is fine, some of the kanji still trip me up though." He sheepishly rubbed the back of head with an uncertain grin on his face. Like he expected her to lash out at him for not being able to perfectly read a difficult language at the age of eleven. She knew some adults that still tripped around reading their native language, like for fuck sake, she still did it too!

"Hmm." Tamashī looked at him with squinted eyes for a moment before nodding and detaching her double sized hip pouch and placing it on the desk in front of her. Once she opened the flap, Naruto lost all interest in what she was doing and began to flip through the notebook again, which he distantly thought was weird.

Tamashī had an inkling of what was going on, which is that something about Naruto was sealed or just mentally locked away a few hours after his birth. Because even in the old timeline, Naruto had a strangely hard time trying to understand seals. Which he shouldn't. Because both of his parents used them and his mother was a feckin Uzumaki, for crying out loud! It should be hard wired into his chakra to understand them; and he could—with difficulty. It was the same thing with Tamashī really, but she wasn't being blocked from the ability. Her father is a fūinjutsu master and had been for at least thirty years before she was conceived. His chakra _knew_ the process of fūinjutsu, and because of him, hers did too.

"I don't have what I need right now, but I'll get that fixed for you tomorrow." Tamashī announced decisively as she snapped the clasps closed on the pouch before reattaching it to her belt.

"Fix what?" Naruto asked suspiciously, squinting his eyes right back at her. Tamashī thought it just made him look like a sleepy fox and had to use a lot of willpower to not coo at him.

"Your eyes. I'll explain later." She answered as the door to the classroom opened and Kakashi Hatake poked his head into the room.

"My first impression of you guys… you're a bunch of morons. Meet me on the roof in five minutes." And then he was gone.


	2. two

Seated on a step in a loose semi-circle in front of Kakashi, the three genin stared up at him with varying expressions on their faces. Sasuke, that dramatic little shit, had his hands folded in front of his mouth and his eyebrows pulled down into a scowl. Kakashi got the feeling he was being stared *through, and could honestly say he didn't fucking like it.

Naruto was next, looking just about ready to burst of his own skin in his excitement, or whatever. His hands constantly strayed up to his slightly tarnished forehead protector, involuntarily shining a light directly into Kakashis' only goddamn visable eye.

Then there was Tamashī, who looked like she had fallen asleep with her eyes open or was thinking something extremely deeply in her possibly genius mind. Kakashi thought she might have been his favourite, simply because she wasn't causing him any physical discomfort.

In all actuality, Tamashī was thinking about what she wanted to eat and if Tsume was going to be making tempura later. It was the only thing the woman could cook, but damn if she didn't cook it well.

"Right," Kakashi announced with a liberal amount of fake brightness in his tone, clapping his hands together forcefully. "Tell me your likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future, and all those other introductiony things."

"Can you go first, sensei? So we know what 'all those other introductiony things' are." Tamashī proposed calmly, sitting on her hands and leaning forwards.

"Yeah, sensei! We don't even know your name!" Naruto shouted, nearly straight into Tamashīs ear canal from how close he was sitting to her.

"Iruka-sensei told us his name earlier." Tamashī pushed him away from nearly sitting in her lap with an expression of annoyed amusement on her face.

"Oh. Heh, I wasn't listening." He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, not doing the scruffy birds nest he calls hair any favours.

"Idiot." The monotone word had a profound effect on his team, Kakashi noted, watching as Naruto started puffing up like an agitated bullfrog and Tamashī turned slowly to look at the brunet with a stony expression; and what do you know, it was nearly creepier than Tenzos' ghoul face.

Then the girl leaned towards Sasuke with a much more relaxed expression and hissed low enough that Kakashi could only pick out a few words, something about turning more than his hair into a chicken? And then she was sitting normally again and looking up at Kakashi with expectancy, clearly waiting for him to start introductions. A quick glance at Sasuke revealed he was a little paler than normal and his eyes had widened marginally, but otherwise looked fine.

"Well, my name is Kakashi Hatake. Things I like and things I hate… I don't feel like telling you. I have lots of hobbies. My dreams for the future? Haven't really thought about it. Now, it's your turn." He deliberated for a moment before pointing to Naruto, "Blondie, you go first."

"But we only learned your name!" Naruto shouted in agitation, subsiding when Tamashī poked a finger into his ribs none too gently. "Fine," he grumbled sulkily before regaining his enthusiasm. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki! I like ramen! But especially the Ichiraku ramen that Iruka-sensei buys for me sometimes! My hobbies are eating different ramen flavours and comparing them, and gardening too! I hate the three minute wait for cup ramen to cook and-!" He cut himself off, gaining a vaguely sombre expression before continuing in a quieter tone of voice, "I hate the looks most of the civilians give me, like I'm some sort of monster. But I understand why they do it now, even if I still don't like it." Naruto sucked in a large breath, visibly qsyching himself up again, "My dream for the future, is to become the greatest Hokage! Because even though most of the villagers don't like me, I'll still protect them with everything I have! So they'll acknowledge and respect me!"

A sort of profound silence greeted his pronouncement, in which Sasuke lost some of his intensity and Tamashī let out a sad little smile and closed her eyes slowly.

"Next, broody." Kakashi cut through the atmosphere like a hot knife through butter, though it lingered around the edges of their perception.

"Sasuke Uchiha, I don't have many likes and much more that I hate. My hobbies are training. I don't have a dream, but an ambition I will make a reality. I will repopulate my clan and kill a certain man."

"Alright next, Girlie." Kakashi announced quickly so the silence wouldn't stretch too long again.

"You couldn't have thought of a better nickname?" Tamashī asked dryly before continuing without giving Kakashi time to respond. "My name is Tamashī Shiro, I like practising jutsu, training, making poisons and cooking. I dislike megalomaniac old men, traitors, when dog slobber gets in my eyebrows and boredom. My dream for the future isn't so much a dream as it is a series of goals I wish to complete before I die." She held up a calloused hand to tick points off on her fingers, "I wish to make chunin as soon as possible, become an opperative for TI, complete the seals so I can fly, become ANBU commander and see the entirety of the elemental nations at peace for at least a week."

"So, you are all individuals. But, can you work as a unit?" This was said in an ominous tone of voice as he went on to say there would be survival training the next day and the rates for success to being an actual genin were not in their favour. He then handed out neat little handwritten pamphlets that outlined the test in the vaguest manner possible before disappearing with a body flicker. Well, he didn't disappear, just moved three feet back and four feet down; most likely clinging to the side of the building with chakra.

"Welp, I'm going. See ya later." Tamashī announced, not quite flippant but near enough as she stood and walked towards the railing Kakashi had been leaning against.

"Uh… Tamashī? The door is that way." Naruto said hesitantly, pointing behind him to the door they came through earlier.

"Doors are for civilians." She said before flinging herself off the roof, sparing a lurking Kakashi a quick wave on her way down.

As she ambled at a leisurely pace towards her apartment, Tamashī thought on what to do about Narutos problem. An unravelling potion would most likely do the trick, but it would have to be weak enough to not unravel The Seal while still fixing what needed fixing, because other wise that would be a Very Bad Thing. Especially at this point in time, considering Kurama was a very literal incarnation of hate and rage. A blood tie, maybe? That would theoretically keep the big seal stable because it was his own parents who died creating it, and root out any other persons chakra that possibly had an integral part of his heritage sealed away. And, if she did put in a blood tie, the potion itself would likely not harm him in anyway if there was—or wasn't—anyone else's chakra in there.

Tamashī opened her eyes that had slipped closed as her mind drifted around the problem, looking around at the red light district that she called home in this dimension and the last, and was pleased at what she saw. The people who made up the district weren't as unscrupulous and dirty as outsiders were made to believe. It was actually run as a small village unto itself, with a leader and advisers who answered to the Hokage all the same, but in a way that city states answered to a president, with near free reign as long as they didn't outright defy the Hokage and funds raised within its borders to keep the streets clean and pay benefits for those people down on their luck. There was even a sort of neighbourhood watch in place that _took care_ of anyone that tried to take advantage of the outsiders view on the district; such as rapists, drug dealers and gangs.

Make no mistake, there was verified gangs and drug dealers, even Tamashī sold stimulants when the mood struck her to acquire more money, it was the usurpers trying to make a foothold on the independent economy that were kicked down; and only rapists and abusers of the highest order were killed where they stood with no hesitation after the pertinent information had been acquired, by any means necessary sometimes. It helped that most people in the district had some ninja training, and barring that, at least a solid grasp on self defence.

Tamashī leap up onto the window sill of her third floor apartment, letting her recollections fall to the wayside as the unravelling potion came to mind again. She would need unicorn blood, freely given, to make the blood tie. Only thing is, she didn't know precisely how it would react to Kuramas hate filled chakra, that—while in miniscule amounts—circulated freely through Narutos own. The unicorn was a being of Light, it's freely given blood purified anything it came into contact with, be it magic or chakra it didn't really matter, it would be purified. Tamashī hadn't found anything yet that could withstand the process, and there had been many attempts to find one over the decades turned centuries.

There was a worry there, she acknowledged quietly as she started brewing the potion in her wizardspaced closet (not too dissimilar to the charms and enchantments on Grimauld Place), that the repercussions to a hate-free Kurama so early on in the game could be a good or bad thing in equal terms. Less grief for Naruto where the fox is concerned, but more from the old war hawk if he ever found out. Trust Danzo to try recruit Naruto by force if he even heard a whisper of the fox being controlled.

Though, he would be alot stronger earlier in terms of a timeline. But that didn't really matter now, did it? The timeline was fucked the moment she stumbled through the Veil in the death chamber, and Tamashī wasn't entirely sure she was actually meant to survive in this dimension.

She had woken up in the wreckage scarily similar to her demolished clan compound on the northernmost edge of lightning country, down to the arcs of blood splattering the floors and walls, but this time… her mother hadn't survived long enough to take her away from it. Maybe the Tamashī Shiro of this dimension had died just before the far older and world weary Tamashī Shiro arrived. Maybe her mother had found the lifeless body of her greatest shame and greatest love in equal parts and just... gave up her ghost with nothing to strive for any longer. This Tamashī knew with certainty that her mother had only lived an extra week because she had to find her bastard child's father so he would take care of her, for as soon as a four year old Tamashī was handed over to him… her mother just collapsed and never got up again.

"But you can't think about that now, Tamashī." She muttered harshly to herself as she poured in a quart of unicorns blood while stirring the nearly complete potion in figure eights. "The last time you thought about your mother, Hogwarts had to get a new astronomy tower. And blowing up your apartment is just counterproductive." She continued in that same, harsh voice before turning down the fire under her cauldron so the potion would simmer for the next twelve hours. It was the colour of new leaves and had the distinct scent of rotting greenery.

She sighed. That scent would stick to her for the next couple of hours and she was going to the main house of a clan of dog-nin. Unless… Tamashī spun around and rooted through one of the low drawers of the cabinates lineing the walls, searching for a specific, squat bottle containing a bright pink liquid with a tiny diffuser as a stopper. Hopefully it'll tone the smell down enough so it was like she had been laying in a pile of leaves in mid-autumn and not swimming through a compost heap at the end of winter.

Stepping into the decontamination shower after she found what she was looking for, Tamashī placed the bottle onto the tiled floor and pressed the diffuser down until the little glass disk inside shattered; allowing the potion to reach the dispersal chamber. A pink mist started billowing out of the bottle, similar to a canister of tear gas, and doused her in magical deodorant.

Tamashī was very pleased she had taken an interest in potions on the first day of classes in Hogwarts, Snapes attitude notwithstanding. Although, she was a Hufflepuff, so his ire wasn't generally directed at her, just Harry Potter and the rest of the Gryffindors.

Tamashī reached up and sent a spark of chakra into one of the seals on the wall, activating an array that sucked in the remaining pink mist while simultaneously drying the potion clinging to her, finally giving her nose some relief from the scent of decomposing organic matter. "Need to find that melon wine for Tsume. I might bring two bottles, just in case." She mused as she stepped out of the shower again, bending down to scoop up the now empty bottle. Tamashī meandered around a few counters to the back door of the potions laboratory, walking through to a nearly exact replica of Grimmauld Place, just without the dark, oppressive aura and severed heads of house elves.

Tamashī had practically fallen in love with the architecture of the London town house the first time she had been there, in 1994. She could have done without the severed heads, oppressive aura and screaming portraits though.

Tamashī felt an involuntary shiver creep up her spine when she bounded up the last two flights of stairs. The chill of the room from beyond the closed door seeped out in a cold enchanted mist before it even opened. She walked purposefully to the shelves marked with an 'M', trailing her fingers over bottles covered in a fine layer of dust. The whole attic had been 'converted' into a library of sorts, except with various types of alcohol instead of the usual books. Tamashī was very proud of her homebrewing bussines, especially after her mob boss neighbour set up a contract for her with four different fine establishments across Fire Country after Tamashī had gifted the powerful man a bottle of cloudberry wine. It was both a welcoming gift and a way to curry favour; saying without saying that 'there's more where that came from if you don't bring me any trouble.' Tamashī had a feeling she would be requested by name for courier runs in the near future.

Grabbing the two bottles of wine, Tamashī made her way out of the cold room so she could be on her way to Kibas' house. Her internal clock told her it was ten to eight, so she would have to hurry if she wanted to make it within the realms of fashionably late. Once she was in the entrance hall again, she opened her thigh pouch and slowly pushed the bottles in, one at a time and seemingly on top of each other. "Undetectable extension charms really are a girls best friend." Tamashī mused as she tied her hair up into a messy ponytail.

She made quick work of exiting her actual apartment and layering alert wards around the place that would stupefy any intruders. Then she was out the window at the end of the hall and dashing across the roof tops to the other side of the village where the clan compounds clustered together near the Forest of Death.

Tamashī loved making gravity defying leaps across the roofs, part of the reason why she wanted to make her own flying device. She had bought the newest model of racing broom before her tumble, the Cloudburst 3000, and the feeling of freedom the rider was granted as the broom went from 0-200 in .5 seconds was the best thing she'd ever encountered, but she wanted to make one herself. Such a difficult project was full of frustrations, but the possible elation at figuring it out kept her going through the process.

Tamashī touched down on the long stretch of road leading to the clan district, breaking into a brisk walk when she spotted Kiba moving towards her. She was probably late again.

"You're late again." Kiba confirmed her unvoiced thought instead of a greeting, which was fairly typical of the dog-nin.

"Yeah, sorry. I was thinking about stuff." She gave an awkward little laugh as they meandered towards his clan compound. "So, how was your meeting with your new sensei? Mine was nearly four hours late."

So they spent the rest of the walk, and most of the night, talking about their new teams and various inconsequential things. Though Tamashī did nearly praise the ground Tsume walked on when she told them that she had made tempura. And their roles almost switched when Tamashī took out the two bottles of wine.

It was a good night, Tamashī decided when she was laying in her bed a few hours later. Many things would be happening in the coming years, but Tamashī had decided early on in this life that she would take anything as it happened, to not worry about being happy. Because she knew, that if she scorned the scant few happy times to come, she would be a mere shell of herself. Something Tamashī had very nearly turned into the last time around, a cold unfeeling creature who cared for nothing, not even the gift of life.

But such thing were too heavy to be thinking of, so she turned over and willed herself to sleep.

 _So, this is the second story I've ever published and I'm determined to finish it!_

 _Also I'd like to thank_ The-Funeral-Pyre _for being the first reviewer of this story! I'm so glad someone liked my story enough to write a review, let alone such a long one :)_

 _Please stick with me as I figure this story out, because I'm just writing it as I go along. I have a vague direction for it to go, but it could change. I also have a few sequels in mind but I'll leave that up to you guys if I should make them!_

 _Tell me what you think in a review, and don't forget to favourite! lol_


	3. the next one

Tamashī woke to the sensation of her entire left arm vibrating violently. She groaned and sat up, the vibrations ending as soon as she was fully awake.

"That will need to be fine tuned some more." She said aloud to herself, referring to the alarm seal tattooed onto the inside of her elbow. When it was new, it had been like her own personal earthquake and had, on a few occasions, broken her arm; and if she fell asleep laying on top of it, some of her ribs would be broken as well.

But of course, there was more important things to be dealing with now, like the potion for Naruto that would be complete in ten minutes if her internal clock was correct. Which it was, it was never wrong.

Tamashī rolled around for a few moments, a quirk she had picked up from her summons that she just couldn't get rid off, before dragging herself to the edge of the bed and tumbling through the opening. The bed itself was a huge repurposed root-ball, with a wizardspaced hollow centre; it had been a present from her summons on the five hundredth anniversary of their contract. It could be sealed away into a storage seal on the base of her foot so it could be taken with her on her journeys like a portable apartment. She planned to utilise this in the future.

Tamashī ambled towards the bathroom for her morning abulations, mentally making a note for herself to have a shower before leaving for Kakashis' survival training. With that done, she slid the mirror over the sink to the side, revealing a dark crawl space that tilted downwards into the gloom. The sides and floor of the space was slippery, so as she scrambled on the sink to climb up into it, all she really had to do was scoot forwards slightly before she was shooting along a downward spiral to the entrance hall. The hidden slide was one of those mindless frivolties she could derive happiness from, so it was with laughter that she shot off the end of the slide and landed in a pit of Devil's Snare. The tendrils of the usually murderous plant almost lovingly caressed her cheeks as she passed through it peacefully, landing in a crouch in entrance hall from the illusioned ceiling.

Once she was in the potions lab again, her nose crinkled at the smell. It was now the sickly sweet scent of decomposition, a smell she knew all too well. The potion had changed colour during the night as well, changing from the green of new leaves to a more neutral pearly grey. Tamashī hummed as she turned the fire off and took the cauldron to a cooling station, setting it down before bending at the knees to get a few empty bottles from the shelf under the counter. She didn't understand why people would only bottle as much of a potion as they needed before vanishing the rest; it was such a waste of time and effort. And frankly, a waste of expensive resources.

Bottling done, Tamashī waved her hand to send the rest of the bottles into a tall cabinet under a stasis charm, a neat little label following after. The cauldron was then placed into an enchanted sink to clean itself as she left to go bathe and get dressed.

She was still worried about the purification qualities of the potion clutched securely in her hand, but it was something she would have to deal with as it happened. And if she had to subdue the fucking Kyuubi, Tamashī would give her life for it to succeed, future plans be damned; because while she hadn't formed as many bonds with people here as she did last time, she would let her soul burn for eternity in the deepest pits of hell before harm from her hands could befall her precious people.

Tamashī snorted loudly from underneath the spray of the shower, thinking that if she could subdue the Kyuubi with her powers, diminished as they were, she would be ruling the world already. Tamashī tilted her head to the side, the thought of ruling the world strangely pleasing. The World Shadow, Sekai no Kage. "Hm. Well sensei, it looks like I do have a dream for the future." She mused, rinsing the shampoo suds out of her thick white hair.

Tamashī stepped out of the shower, casting a quick drying charm as she went that only worked partially. She always had trouble with innocuous spells, they were always too weak, and if she was using her wand they tended to be overpowered to the point of being ridiculous. A simple _tregeo_ , which was the most gentle cleaning spell, destroyed things beyond repair and if used on a person, would flay them to the bone. Handy in battle situations, but a point of frustration at any other time. She definitely wouldn't be a housewitch with her talents, that's for sure.

She sighed as she pulled the hem of her navy t-shirt, a tight, high necked thing that hid the scarring on her throat that killed her bodies' original incarnation. It was jagged and a silvery purple, with deep gouges and disturbing raised patches. Tamashī thought it looked like someone just poured in purple putty when the wound was fresh, the reason being that it didn't look like it closed over at all, having the same gaping mouth appearance that it had eight years ago.

Tamashī clipped on her thigh and hip pouches before placing a thick banded silver ring onto the middle finger of her right hand, the clan markings identical to a certain Sannins' disappearing from her cheeks. She was sad to see them go, but too much was at stake right now for that kind of reveal to be dropped. Tamashī tied her white mane of hair up into a high bun and secured it with a pair of belled hair sticks; the sounds they made were delayed by a fatal two seconds. Now that she thought about it, her hair was a nearly identical style to Madara Uchihas' iconic mane of unruly spikes. She squinted her eyes at her reflection suspiciously before shrugging and packing Narutos potion into her thigh pouch, deciding she had dawdled long enough, it was already nine after all.

After grabbing her favoured weapons—a war hammer taller than she was along with a bow and arrows—and a premade bento box, she exited her apartment and layered her currently non-lethal wards before taking off out of the window again, eating her breakfast as she jumped over the rooftops.

There was a screech of outrage moments after she dropped a heavily syrup covered stick of dango over the shopping district, but that was completly unrelated. Yes, entirely coincidental.

Tamashī dropped down near the red bridge connecting the administrative and training districts, still eating but at much more relaxed pace. She was just finishing her last bite of takoyaki when her 'new' teammates finally spotted her.

"You're late! And we're not supposed to be eating breakfast!" Naruto shouted in an accusatory fashion.

"Hn." Sasuke agreed in less words.

"Oh, Sasuke… you're so eloquent! You should write poetry." Tamashī started dryly, plopping down on the worn slats of the bridge in a cross legged position. "Also, Naruto; the breakfast thing was a suggestion not an order."

"Then why are you late?!"

"I was finishing the solution for the problem we were talking about yesterday." Tamashī stated, successfully hiding her worry about the subject as she unsealed two single tiered bento boxes from the palm of her left hand. She held them out silently.

"Problem...? Oh! That! What did you figure out?" Naruto asked curiously as he took one of the boxes, settling down to sit next to her. Sasuke looked suspicious for a long moment before he too took a box and sat down further away from them, though he was still listening in.

"I need three drops of your blood first. It's nothing weird." She added hastily at his disturbed look, waving her hands in appeasement, "I used family techniques to make a potion but I'll need your blood so it'll be tied to you. Then it can work it's magic to remove any possible chakra from your system that isn't familial." Tamashī said soothingly, "if the problem is what I think it is—and even if it's not—the blood tie will make sure it can't possibly cause any pain."

Naruto stared at her for a moment but nodded his agreement, taking a slightly rusted kunai from his pouch and making movements to cut open his palm.

"Wait!" Tamashī exclaimed as she snatched the kunai from his hand and examining it closely. "This is rusty! You can't use it anymore, you could get lock jaw and the structural integrity could cause it to break at an inconvenient time. How long have you had these?" She asked in a voice as close to distress as she would ever get, it sounded distantly angry even to her own ears. Tamashī winced internally, the last thing she wanted was for her nephew-by-technicality to think she was angry with him.

"Uh, I bought them yesterday." The quiet statement was more like a bomb being set off in her brain, for all the implications it had.

"Okay Naruto, what I want you to do is empty your weapons pouch while I go over here for a few minutes." She announced in a flat tone of voice, pointing to the tree line on the training side of the bridge.

"Why?" Naruto asked as he started emptying his pouch.

"There's something I need to do." Then she stood and walked towards the trees with a robotic stride, disappearing behind the tree line. There was silence for a moment as Naruto and Sasuke shared a look; then: _"I'll fucking kill those bastards!"_ It was definitely a shout, but it sounded like it was muffled by a pillow or something. In fact, Tamashī had put up a _silencio_ , but the height of her sudden rage broke through it partially.

Then she walked back to her team like nothing happened and sat down again, taking off her own weapons pouch to swap Narutos rusted weapons with her new ones. Ten kunai and four shuriken. That was all Naruto had weapons wise, though he did have an impressive amount of homemade smoke bombs. "I'll swap you ten feet of ninja wire for three of these smoke bombs." Tamashī haggled after inspecting the bombs, finding them to be a higher end store grade.

"Sure!" Naruto agreed cheerfully, after a baffled moment of silence as Tamashī took his weapons and replaced them with her own.

"Hey, Sasuke! You want to get in on this? These smoke bombs are great, and I have kunai with poison chambers in the tips! C'mon, it'll be fun." Tamashī looked at the surly boy with a smile that had absolutely no devotion in it whatsoever, and later, Tamashī would say that's the only reason Sasuke had come over at all.

They spent the next hour doing that, swapping weapons and showing off what they wouldn't. Tamashī had gained a shocked exclamation from Naruto and an impressed look from Sasuke when she showed of her war hammer, explaining some of the features she had inked onto it. Making it impossible for anyone other than her to lift it, the bursts of earth natured chakra when it struck something to recreate Tsunade Senjus' monster strength; because she would never gain the amount of chakra control to use that strength traditionally. Sasuke showed off his demon wind shuriken and Uchiha grade ninja wire, much to Tamashīs' delight and Narutos' consternation. When it came to Narutos turn to show off, he had asked if he could do a jutsu he made instead, to which Tamashī agreed.

As the smoke cleared to reveal Narutos Sexy Technique, Sasuke blushed along the apples of his cheeks and Tamashī got a nose bleed. "Do you… uh. Do you think you could teach me how to do that?" Tamashī asked faintly, one hand raised to stem the flow of blood from her nose. Despite the fact that Tamashī had seen this jutsu numerous times, she had never asked Naruto how he did it, thinking at the time that it was juvenile and stupid. But now, with her centuries old mind and lots of worldly knowledge, she could see the, ah, _benefits_ of such a technique.

"Yeah, it's super easy! Raise your hands like this." Tamashī copied him down to the twitch of his pinky finger, holding the picture of her older self in her mind as she let her chakra work the physical transformation, instead of a shell of chakra around her body like the transformation jutsu thought in the academy.

A heavy poof of smoke surrounded Tamashīs seated form, prompting a cough from her. "Well did it work?" She asked and was immediately surprised at the timber of her voice. It was always rough and husky, but now it carried a sensuality of age that she didn't realise she had missed. The smoke dissipated to reveal an older Tamashī in a many layered, jewel toned kimono.

"Woah." Naruto whispered unintentionally while Sasuke turned his head away swiftly to hide his sudden nose bleed.

"I think I'll stay like this until sensei shows up." Tamashī hid a shiver at the way her own voice said 'sensei', feeling a flush raise on her transformed cheeks. She stood fluidly and conjured a gigantic purple cushion with golden tassels, weaving a faint genjutsu to make it look like it had been unsealed. No need to announce to the world what any of her abilities were. "Who wants to play a prank on Kakashi?" Tamashī grinned deviously at the two blushing boys in front of her, cackling mentally when their blushes got deeper as she spoke. Oh yes, she was going to have fun with this.

When Kakashi arrived an hour later, he had to pause incredulously at the scene he had stumbled upon. His two male students were fanning an expensively dressed woman who had a striking resemblance to his female student while a clone of Naruto—or perhaps Naruto himself—fed the woman grapes as she lounged gracefully on a large cushion. There was heavy blushes on the boys faces and a sort of dreamy look in Sasukes eyes that he honestly did not want analyse further. Kakashi quickly hid himself in the trees before they could see him, moving closer to hear what was being said.

"Ane-ue, would you like more shade?" A Naruto asked deferentially, causing Kakashi to nearly fall out of his tree.

 _'Sister?! And so respectful too…'_ Kakashi thought with a heavy amount of shock, having believed previously that Naruto couldn't actually act respectful in any capacity.

"No, the sun is good for me." The woman answered and hot damn, that voice went straight to his crotch. It was like something from one of the _other_ books he read, the ones not written by Jiraiya. While the man could write well, the stories were usually about cheesey ninja romance. This though, was like a period drama in the Daimyos court.

"Perhaps a drink, Tama no Kimi?" It was just shock after shock, for poor Kakashi wasn't it? Sasuke had just called the woman 'My beloved Spirit,' like some heartstruck lover.

The woman smiled at the dark haired youth fanning her, all soft grey eyes and fluttering lashes. "That would be lovely, dear, I am feeling quite parched." Then Sasuke pulled a purple box from his weapons pouch and poked a straw through the top, handing it reverently to the woman with that dreamy look still in his eyes. The woman wrapped her lips around the end of the straw and sucked gently, making her cheeks go hollow for a moment. That was all Kakashi needed to fall from the tree he was hiding in, landing in a heap underneath it with a blood soaked mask.

The three in the middle of the training ground turned to look at the intrusion, Tamashī letting the transformation fall away with her laughter. "Here, Sasuke. You can have your juice back." She said as she stood up, vanishing the cushion she was on in a cloud of smoke and handing him the box of grape juice back. She turned away from him when it was in his hands again, missing that he had taken a drink with a blissful expression, though Naruto didn't. He looked at the other boy with a disturbed gaze and decided to ignore it. For now.

"Hey guys, look! He's passed out." Tamashī announced gleefully as she poked Kakashis shoulder with a long stick.

He wasn't. Kakashi was essentially playing dead as he went over the scene in his mind, trying to figure out how they tricked him. It must have been because of the shock factor that he didn't look too closely, yes he'll go with that. There was small hands rifling through his pockets when he decided to stop playing dead, so he used a quick body flicker to hide in the trees again to see what they were doing.

They had his alarm clock, the bells and his book. Wait, his book?! Yes, Tamashī and Sasuke were flipping through his book as Naruto gleefully shook the bells around beside them. Sasuke looked dazed, staring off into the middle distance but Tamashī was largely unimpressed.

"Why does this have an R rating? It's just fluff with a few sappy sex scenes." Tamashī asked in disappointment.

"Hn." Sasuke disagreed in less words.

Tamashī squawked in well feigned alarm when the book was abruptly snatched out of her hands, though Sasuke looked disappointed.

"It's rated R because of the sex scenes." Kakashi stated with disapproving look no.67, one he didn't know he could even produce.

"Eh, I've seen better." Tamashī waved a negligent hand before grabbing a bell from Naruto so she could wave one around too without taking her hair down.

"Give me those." Kakashi reached to take both bells but Tamashī danced back a few steps with them clutched in her hand.

"Why sensei? We got them fair and square."

"How did you even know what the test would be?" He asked in exasperation, giving up on the bells when she stepped out of his reach again.

"Anko owed me a favour." Tamashī answered happily, handing Sasuke a bell so he could wave one too. He just held it and stared at her. Tamashī didn't notice.

"How do you- you know what? Never mind. You all pass. Meet me here tomorrow morning at six." Then he was gone, book, clock, bells and all.

Naruto loudly exclaimed his joy at being a real ninja without any effort, talking about celebrating with ramen.

"Do you guys want to have a celebratory team dinner at my house? I can make whatever." Tamashī asked when Naruto took a breath to start shouting again. She decided it would be alright to show them her home, since they were a team now. Besides, she had done the same last time, now she just had a bigger living space.

"Can you make ramen?!"

"Tomatoes."

This was an expected response to her question so she knew just how to answer. "Sure, I have some giant tomatoes I can gut and use as bowls so you both get something you want." Tamashī mused, bring a hand up to her chin. "Oh, and I can make chutney with the left overs! Win win situation!" She waved them on to follow her, chatting amicably with them both. Or in Sasukes case, she chatted at him while he stared at her and inputted a few grunts to show he was listening.

Another good day, Tamashī decided, her happy grin turning radiant.

 _another chapter! yay! I would like to thank the people who followed and favourited my story, you guys are great lol_

 _also! a big thanks to_ The-Funeral-Pyre _for their second review and to_ niyuu _for their first one! im glad people are enjoying this story enough to tell me about it! :)_

 _i have a question: what do you guys want to see in the coming chapters and what are your thoughts on the things revealed thus far?_

 _leave a favourite if you like and dont forget to review! lol_


	4. four

In the weeks following their first dinner, Team Seven fell into an easy routine of training and D-ranked missions. Tamashī enjoyed the menial tasks, especially the ones involving dogs or old people or dog people or even old dogs. Naruto liked the in-village courier missions, because he got to run around while not dealing with too many people. Sasuke though, was kind of hard to read recently. Tamashī thought he was acting strange but she couldn't put a finger on _why_. If she ever asked him what his favourite missions were, he would just stare and grunt and it was getting to the point that Tamashī was becoming slightly unnerved.

Asking him questions in regards to training were slightly better, though only slightly. Since he was more involved with physical activity she could even get words out of him if she asked a yes or no question.

Naruto was enthusiastic about literally everything, though his demeanor did calm down a tiny bit after she had remembered to give him that potion, and he could read seals now so that was a plus. The chakra that was released from his body was painfully familiar, though she couldn't put her finger on where she'd felt it. It wasn't in the village though, she could tell that much. The whole thing was very anti-climatic honestly, since she had been expecting something to happen.

Tamashī was just waiting for the moment when the fox woke up and realized he wasn't full of rage anymore; because she could feel that while it wasn't all gone, the unconscious malice that leaked out of Naruto was a lot less potent than it had been. Tamashī was actually of the opinion that that was the cause of most of the civilians unreasonable fear and hatred, just like the Dursleys and the Horcrux in Harry's head.

Tamashī wondered if Kurama would know it was her who tampered with him, and if he wanted a conversation at some point. Legilimens would help to get her in Narutos head, but she had the tendency to show up naked and she honestly didn't want that image in Narutos mind. Kurama seeing her naked wasn't much of a problem, considering he's chakra with a conscious and only slightly younger than her. Tamashī calling someone 'slightly younger' though is quite misleading, considering a small amount of time for Tamashī could be anywhere from a year to a few _hundred_ years.

Tamashī gave herself a mental shake, refocusing on her task. Listening to Mrs. Hasegawa as she gave the elderly woman a sponge bath.

"–As the asshole went in to kiss me, I head butted him straight in the mouth! Like I'd let that bastard kiss me when he insulted my family, arranged marriage or not! That's how I got this scar on my forehead! See!" She gestured wildly to her face, causing Tamashī to duck lest she get hit with her flailing arms. Tamashī looked at her forehead, not being able to pick out a scar from the crags of the woman's wrinkles. She agreed all the same though.

"What happened then?" Tamashī asked in amusement, lifting one of Mrs. Hasegawas' arms to run the sponge down its length.

"Well, then I kissed him! You have to seal your wedding vows at the alter after all!" Tamashī laughed along to her cackling as she helped her out of the large wooden tub, quickly producing a towel to protect Mrs. Hasegawas' modesty.

"How is your husband these days?" Tamashī asked, bringing her to a stool so she could do the physically older woman's hair.

"Still missing his front teeth!" Tamashī laughed helplessly in surprised mirth, taking a moment to still her hands of their shaking so she wouldn't mess up the do she was creating.

There was a knock on the door to Mrs. Hasegawas room a few minutes later, opening without permission, to reveal a nurse with a harried expression on her face. "Ms Shiro, your team is waiting for you at the front desk." Even her voice sounded exhausted.

Tamashī nodded towards the nurse and slid a crystal flower pin into Mrs Hasegawas hair, standing back to admire her work. "I might be back next week, Mrs Hasegawa. Probably solo."

"I'll look forward to it, dear." She raised a shaky hand to grasp one of Tamashīs', placing a few small things into it before gently coaxing her to the door. She let herself be lead out, waving a cheerful goodbye to everyone in the dayroom and receiving pleased farewells from the ladies whose hair she had done. They all looked fabulous.

"How's it going, fam?" Tamashī asked as she strolled up to them, taking in the disgusted looks on Naruto and Sasukes faces and the faintly amused one of Kakashi-sensei.

"Never again." Naruto announced vehemently with a shudder of horror. Sasuke nodded curtly in agreement.

"Was it really that bad?" Tamashī asked in amusement, looking down at her hand to see she had been given four individually wrapped pieces of bubble gum.

"It was terrible, Tamashī! Never let me get that old!" Naruto was joking of course, but Tamashī took it seriously. Not in the way that she would murder him if he got a wrinkle, but in the way of anti-aging potions.

"I promise." She promised solemnly, face as serious as anyone had ever seen her.

"Alright!" Kakashi exclaimed as he clapped his hands to clear the weird air that settled over them, "Next mission is capture and retrieval. Madam Shijimi has lost her cat once again, and we need to catch him."

Naruto groaned, having heard what the mission was like from both Teams Eight and Ten, so the reaction was understandable. Sasuke took cues from Tamashī and seeing she was enthusiastic about it allowed himself to show partial interest.

"Let me go to one of the sushi restaurants first. The cat might come with us with minimal fuss if we give him an incentive." Tamashī mused as she handed the other three one of the candies from her hand before leaving the civilian nursing home.

The last time she had done this mission, Tora had turned out to be a neko-matta and Tamashī knew just how to catch those. She would need lamp oil made of animal fats and a plate of salmon sashimi. Neko-matta hated deception, so it would be best to just openly approach the magical cat and disable the glamour on her face where the rest of her team wouldn't see her. She'll tell them eventually who her father was, though she was pretty sure Kakashi already knew.

When they met up at the missions office half an hour later, Tamashī had a styrofoam tray of thinly sliced fish and a sealed bottle of lamp oil under her arm. She just shrugged when that gained her a few weird looks from her team. "I think we should split up. We'll cover more ground that way." Tamashī proposed when she reached them.

"Alright, but don't stray too far from each other. The headsets only work within two hundred feet." Kakashi agreed, handing out the bulky wired boxes so they could attach them to the waist bands of their pants. He then placed his own over his ear before taking out his book and ambling away.

"Useless sensei." Naruto grumbled mutinously under his breath.

"I heard that!" Kakashi announced cheerfully from a good fifty feet away, raising his hand in a backwards wave when they looked at him and popping away with a body flicker.

"Huh. Well anyway, I'm gonna head towards the RD to look over there. Naruto, you take the shopping district, and Sasuke." She looked at him and was mildly stumped at his muted expression of eagerness. "Uh. Training grounds. Yeah, you look around the training grounds. Did anyone get a description of the target?" Tamashī asked while dishing out a few slices of fish in ziplock bags for the two boys to take.

"Rusty fur. Red bow on its neck." Sasuke answered, using his words for once.

"Great, here you guys take one of these." She offered a bag to them both, Naruto taking it with his usual enthusiasm; though maybe a bit more, Tamashī was essentially making the mission easier for them. Sasuke just looked bored, but his hand did brush against her own to grasp the bag. The calluses on his fingers rubbed against her own like fine sandpaper, dry and scrapey. Tamashī suppressed an instinctual, uncomfortable shiver at the sensation.

After Naruto and Tamashi gave each other salutes, they were off over the rooftop highway, scanning diligently for a glimpse of rusty fur through the crowds of people. Tora had been spotted in the last few weeks around one of the teahouses in the Red light district hanging around the gentle geisha for adoring pats and scritches; so Tamashī would head there first, if not for the cat, then for a lead at least.

Tamashī strolled up to one of the high-end teahouses with the confidence of a person living in the area for fifty plus years, waving cheerful hellos to the people she recognized. Before she reached the teahouse proper, Tamashī took her shoes off and replaced them with a pair of personalized slippers from the low cabinate so she wouldn't dirty the tatami flooring.

"How can I help you today, Shiro-sama?" A soft voice from the centre podium called out, causing Tamashī to look towards the speaker. It was a young woman dressed as a traditional geisha, but Tamashī thought she must be new as she didn't recognize her.

"I would like to inquire as to whether Kokoro Chikara and associates are in attendance at the moment?" Tamashī asked, unintentionally slipping into a more formal style of language. It happened whenever someone called her 'Shiro-sama' and she didn't think it would be a dropped habit anytime soon.

"Yes, Chikara-sama is in the Tsubaki room. Would you like an escort?" Tamashī debated for a moment before dipping her head in assent, allowing another girl she didn't recognize to lead her further into the building.

The girl announced her at the sliding door of the Tsubaki room before bowing out, retreating to wherever she had been stationed. Tamashī looked after her for moment before striding into the room and sitting cross legged on the cushion across from her mob boss neighbour, Kokoro Chikara.

"So I see the Lady got some new girls in, where are they from?" Tamashī asked with indifference colouring her tone as she pulled the headset off and muted the microphone before placing it on the table. She murmured a quiet 'thank you' to the subordinate who poured her a glass of sake, knocking it back quickly and sipping the subsequent glasses after.

"Upper civilian district." Kokoro answered amusedly, sipping his own sake.

"The UCD, eh? Probably think they'll get lynched as soon as they step outside. I trust the Lady has made them sign the non-disclosure agreements I cooked up for her." Tamashī voiced idly. The words sounded like a question, but they were anything but.

"Yes, and I have a man walking them home at night after their shift ends. The ones that clean up well, you understand." The Boss and the unofficial shadow leader stared at each other solemnly for but a moment, before grins stole across both of their faces, causing the others stationed around the room to relax.

"So I'm on mission right now, as you can tell from my clunky headset." Tamashī waved a hand to said clunky headset negligently, taking another sip of her drink. "Nothing like the ones our people created in the last year, these only work within two hundred feet and they're so noticeable! Terrible for any mission higher than a D." She grumbled distractedly before belatedly getting to the point of her visit, "Anyway, that cat the Lady has made friends with. You seen it around? It belongs to Madam Shijimi and I—well my team and I—need to capture it."

"I have seen it. It's with the Lady right now, if I'm not mistaken." He raised his hand as signal for someone to collect it, causing the man nearest to the door to leave promptly.

"Hm. So what is it you want?" Tamashī asked dryly, running the tip of her index finger along the edge of her sake dish. "You have never done anything without gaining something in return; even if it is just sending a man to collect a cat." She looked across the table with shrewd eyes, taking in Kokoros' body language silently.

"I have a mission for you." He began conversationally, body relaxed but fingers tight around his cup. "I need a man dead."

"And you think I'll kill a man for you because you got a cat for me?" Tamashī asked in blatant disbelief as she placed her cup down on the low table in front of them.

"No. The cat is for the steady supply of wine." He flashed her an attractive grin, only to falter when she gave him no reaction. "Think of this mission as another favour for favour situation." He placed a black scroll on the table between them, both of them knowing the mission would be accepted as soon as she picked it up. Tamashī narrowed her eyes at it in contemplation.

At that moment, the door opened to reveal the man from earlier looking worse for wear with scratches all over his face and a yowling cat in his arms.

Tamashī hummed and picked up her headset, placing it back around her ear and unmuting the microphone. "This is Soul calling in. Target spotted. Permission to engage?" Tamashī spoke in a monotone, cutting off Narutos annoyed wailing.

"Permission granted. Proceed with caution." Kakashis voice crackled over the line before it went dead again with a rasp.

Tamashī muted the set again but left it on, standing from her seat to approach the cat. It swiped at her with impressive claws for a pet, but she just raised her hand slowly to its face so it could sniff her, bloody scratches and all. Tora calmed down when it was apparent Tamashī wouldn't be getting aggressive with him, even leaping out of his captors arms to land on her shoulders, settling down and curling his tail(s) around her neck. Tamashī returned to her seat without knocking Tora off of her, removing her silver ring when the cat hissed at her deception, causing the glamour on her face to disappear.

"Ah, is it one of those neko-matta you told the children about?" Kokoro asked curiously, leaning forward to peer at Tora closely.

"Yes, it is. This one is not old enough to talk, but it has two tails so it's over eleven years old. I think Tora here might actually be a cat summons, I had heard that some of them went missing from the waypoint between realms about thirty years ago from my own summons." Tamashī explained as she poured some of the lamp oil into a quickly conjured dish, placing it and the sashimi on the table so Tora could eat in peace.

"What age are they when they gain the ability for human speech?" Kokoro questioned, rampant curiosity apparent.

"Between forty and fifty years of age. They are marvellous singers when they do gain a voice, not at all like the yowling tones of mundane cats." Tamashī answered as she watched Tora cautiously lean his front paws on the table to sniff the dishes. She narrowed her eyes at the action. Any type of cat would be cautious about food by a stranger, but not this much. It was like he was expecting to be harassed at any moment. Tamashī resolutely turned her eyes away, prompting everyone else in the room to do the same and picked up her glass again. "So, tell me more about this mission before I pick it up."

"Well, there is a man in Wave country-" he started before Tamashī cut him off by picking the scroll up. "Do you not want to hear the rest?"

"No need. I know exactly what this is about." Tamashī answered and a slow, vicious grin spread over her face as she read the details of the mission. "My team and I will be heading to Wave in the next few days. I'll send a message when the objective is complete." She stood smoothly and drained the last of her drink, picking up Tora and settling him over her shoulders. "My payment will be thirty percent of the profits and a large favour, non-negotiable." With that, Tamashī nodded around the room before striding out, making plans that would hopefully be implemented within the next few days.

Tamashī placed her ring back on before leaving the private hallway, soothing the cat when he started to hiss as she contemplated this mission. Kokoro wanted Gato dead, an easy enough undertaking as he was only a civilian. Any difficulties would stem from the people he hired, Zabuza and his apprentice being the exception as the missing-nin was only in it so he could gain the funds for the uprising in Mist. The whole mission nicely tied into her own goals of using the Gato corporation as a front for her as yet to be established spy network, as well. And the fact that it would coincide with Team Sevens first C-rank to liberate a country was just excellent.

Tamashī let a small, devious grin steal across her face for a moment as she unmuted her mic again, "Target acquired. Returning to home base." She really gained too much amusement from acting like she was in a spy movie when talking over the radios.

"Where's home base?" Naruto asked in confusion, his tinny voice ruining the atmosphere Tamashī made herself.

"The mission office." Tamashī sighed in exasperation, taking to the roof tops and dashing speedily towards her destination. When she met up with her team, Tamashī let herself drift away mentally, her eyes tilted up at the sky and following Narutos orange jacket in her peripherals. She didn't have anything on her mind per se; but from the relative safety of being surrounded by her team, she could let her thoughts drift freely and sort themselves as they wished.

It was in one such drift that she had figured out the mechanics for the jutsu she had been creating. Instead if it being overly complicated with various transmutations happening simultaneously, it became a variation of the shadow clone technique. The jutsu took the same amount of chakra as a clone, but rather than creating a butterfly her own size, it made millions of brightly coloured, razor sharp and poisonous butterflies that connected to the original caster and made them the 'queen' of a hive mind. Not to dissimilar to the Aburame clan, except the butterflies wouldn't be burrowed into the castors skin. Tamashī was thinking of sharing the jutsu with the Aburame clan for those who marry into it, because there have been a few people in the past that felt a certain amount of distance from their spouses simply because the non-Aburame clan members didn't understand the feeling of unity with having your own hive. Which was understandable, Tamashī hadn't understood until she created the jutsu and that feeling was only artificial.

Tamashī was snapped out of her drifting when large hands gently grasped her upper arms and turned her around. She had apparently walked right past the mission office and Kakashi had to come out and retrieve her before she got too far away with the Daimyos wife's cat. Tamashī sheepishly scratched her cheek with her pointer finger as she chuckled awkwardly at the irritated look on Iruka-senseis face. Everyone else just looked amused, including Madam Shijimi.

At the sight of the Daimyos wife, Tamashī had a potentially moronic idea spring to mind. It was a gamble and could possibly make the influential woman angry with her, but she had to try, for Toras' continued well being. "Madam Shijimi?" Tamashī started as she sidled up beside the richly dressed woman, "Could I speak to you for a moment please?"

Madam Shijimi furrowed her eyebrows at the girl and the way her beloved cat dug his claws into her shoulders when she reached up to grab him, but nodded her agreement nonetheless. "Yes, where would you like to speak?" The girl looked towards her Hokage and canted her head to the side, indicating something and getting a silent nod in return.

"If you would follow me? Hokage-sama has given me permission to use a conference room."

When they had settled at the medium sized western table in one of the conference rooms, with the door open halfway so they could be given the illusion of privacy from the Madams guards, Tamashī gently extracted Tora from her shoulders and placed him on the table, where he immediately curled into a defensive ball.

She sucked in a large breath and let it out slowly, forming the image of a girl grasping for courage as she turned to the powerful civilian in front of her. "When I captured Tora, he had several badly healed fractured ribs caused by excessive force." Tamashī paused when Madam Shijimi let out a gasp of outrage, but the physically younger girls pained face made her hold in her swift judgement for the moment. "I know you love Tora like your own child, but cats are more fragile than humans." She choked on her words slightly, frustratedly rubbing at her eyes. Tamashī hated animal abusers—accidental or not—the thoughts of someone harming animals always made her cry, no matter what age she was. "He… he doesn't understand affection through hugs. They just hurt him, so he thinks it's an attack. And I can tell by his mannerisms that you don't let him out when he needs it, so to Tora, he sees you as a mean jailer. Cats need freedom, they are independant creatures and their affection is subtle." Tamashī let a silent stream of tears escape her tightly clenched eyes, instead of the quiet sobs that clogged up her throat. While she wanted to just cry loudly, she couldn't. Because she was a ninja–and ninja don't cry; but Tamashī appeared to be young so she could get away with her silent tears. "Just–" she paused again to clear her throat, forcing the forming lump down so she could speak clearly, "Just, please. Take care of him." Tamashī stood from her seat and bowed deeply, half in apology for her impertinence and half out of respect for the woman's station.

Hidden by her bangs, Tamashīs mouth was set in a stoic line. Emotional manipulation of this sort didn't work all that often, but if it went the way she thought it would, Tamashī will have gained something important for the future. The ear of the Daimyos wife was a grand thing indeed, especially when the Daimyo himself was flighty and indecisive.

"Stand up, child." Madam Shijimis voice was low, but there was a thoughtful note to it. Tamashī stood properly and quickly wiped her eyes with her forearm, using just enough pressure for her sclera to redden slightly. "I will take your words into consideration. Return to your team."

Tamashī nodded swiftly and turned to the door but paused in indecision, then she pulled out a small but thick hardback book from her hip pouch and placed it on the table before leaving properly. Madam Shijimi looked at the title in confusion, letting her painted lips quirk slightly after reading it.

 _'Neko-matta and You: for when you've accidentally adopted a magical cat as your pet. Tips for proper care and grooming. Vol. 1'_

To keep up her act, when Tamashī returned to her team in the office she hid behind Kakashi and buried her face in the back of his jonin vest while grasping a portion of it in her hand. It really spoke of their progress as a team that he didn't dislodge her, but didn't offer comfort either.

Madam Shijimi returned to pay for the successful mission, Tora held carefully in her arms and not being crushed around the ribs. The cat looked nervous and twitchy, but stayed in place. Many of the ninja in the room looked at this development with well hidden astonishment. It was well known at this point that the Daimyos wife didn't take care of her pets as well as she should.

Things went smoothly from then on, until Naruto predictably exploded about the 'baby missions' and got them a C-rank. Tazuna was brought in promptly, and Tamashī jumped in before he and Naruto could start insulting each other.

"Is that…?" Tamashī gasped in honest delight, inching out from behind Kakashi. "It is! Iwa sake with a citrus twist! I've been waiting for my own shipment so I could deconstruct it and resell under my own brand. Tell me, how are the undertones? The smoothness? Potency?" She asked rapid fire as she pulled out a small notebook and a pencil, eagerly waiting for the bridge builder to answer.

Tazuna looked at her seriously, contemplating his answers. "The undertones are slightly floral, orange blossoms, if I'm not mistaken. Smoothness is moderate, it has a pleasant burn as it goes down. There isn't much potency, if it was too strong it would over power its almost delicate taste."

She nodded sagely as wrote down his answers. "A fellow connoisseur."

"Tamashī," the Hokages exasperated tone made her look up, "if you could please not use this as a business opportunity."

She lowered her notebook sheepishly.

"Well Team, we'll meet up at the main gates at nine tomorrow morning. Pack for three weeks. You're all dismissed." Kakashi ordered before ambling away, looking a little confused. Probably wondering about why he didn't shake off Tamashī.

"Hey Tazuna, since we're gonna be in each others company for the next three weeks at least, do you want to taste test some of my newest creations? I need an opinion other than my own because I am extremely biased." She shot the man a charming grin from where she stood at his side, having sidled over unnoticed.

"Sure girlie, lead the way."

Tamashī hid the devious slant to her grin as she spoke to the bridge builder, leading him out of the office and towards one of the bars she had a contract with.

An interesting day, she decided, as her plans started coming to light in her own mind.

 _Another chapter! Yay! I'm sorry for the wait too, I think up until now I've had a chapter out at least once a week but this time it might be pushing two. (I have a terrible sense of time, sorry guys lol)_

 _Anyway! some shout outs and a few answers:_

The-Funeral-Pyre: _you've reviewed on every chapter(even though there's only been three up until this point) and I really appreciate it! Please continue sending me praise(I'm kidding lol(not really though)), I enjoy reading your reviews a lot_

FarFromTheSun: _Thank you for your review! :D_

Guest reviewer_TimeDevil: _Tamashī giving Naruto the potion is anti-climatic and I apologize for that. I kept hitting a brick wall with the entire situation but hopefully her conversation with the fox will be much better(I'm thinking during the Wave mission or the chunin exam arc) and I thank you for the love! :)_

salsas100: _I like that you see potential in my story, because currently the whole thing is being pulled directly out of my ass. And also, thank you for reading my story! I'm really happy with the reception its received so far! :)_

Lady Sarahi Peverell: _Thank you for your review! I'll answer the questions you posed and I'm glad you asked too; it shows me you're invested in my story enough to want to know quicker! Also, thank you for your advice. If I do get any suggestions I might make them into omakes either in a separate story file or just tacked into this fic. Also also, your english is really good. Keep practicing and you'll be better than native speakers in no time! :)_

Q1:Is Jiraiya Tamashīs father? A: simple answer, yes he is.

Q2: Is Hiruzens daughter her mother? A: No

Another thing though, I've been asked in a few messages about how the Hokage is her grandfather and I've decided to answer to clear up some confusion. It started with Jiraiya and his orphan status. I've actually borrowed the idea from _Vixen tail_ in their story _Déjà vu no Jutsu_ (btw that's a good story you should check it out if you haven't already). There is a law that protects orphans and makes their jonin sensei their legal guardian, and by either a filing error or just forgetting about the law, Hiruzen and Jiraiya never rescinded the guardianship; making Hiruzen Tamashīs grandfather-by-technicality and subsequently that would make Minato her brother and Naruto her nephew along with Kakashi because he had been orphaned before he made jonin status. (I might have butchered the entire thing, but it makes sense to me)

 _And now, I have a question for my reviewers!_ The Red light district I've created; what are peoples thoughts on that? I like to think I did a good job with it, but other peoples opinions and criticisms go a long way in polishing a story!

 _People can send me messages if my storytelling(or explanations) have lead to more confusion and they don't want to write reviews out of shyness or anxiety. I have the same deal, I don't mind answering questions even if you guys think they're stupid! We'll never get answers if we don't ask the questions, after all._

 _Drop a favourite if you liked it and don't forget to review! lol_


	5. 5

The morning after being assigned the C-rank to Wave, Tamashī arrived at the main gates ten minutes late with Tazuna in tow, both nursing the slightest sting of a hangover.

"You're late!" Naruto shouted indignantly, sounding especially aggravated. He had an over stuffed travel pack on his back, gripping the shoulder straps tightly. Sasuke had the same, though his pack was in better condition than Narutos tread bare and scuffed one. In comparison to the two, Tamashī looked severely unprepared with her double sized hip pouch and three thigh pouches, though one of those pouches strapped to her leg was long and thin, looking like it would barely hold anything at all.

"Yo, sorry. I brought Tazuna drinking last night and we ended up cleaning out the bar at the inn he had booked a room at and we got kicked out for reasons, so I talked to the manager of my building to let him stay in one of the free apartments." She shrugged, "it's against protocol sure, but I couldn't let our client sleep out in the streets. By that time, booking hours were closed at the hotels and inns."

Kakashi sighed, he was used to her antics by now, two months into their team as he was. Naruto sputtered indignantly and Sasuke just cycled between staring at Tamashī and giving Tazuna the stink eye for reasons only he knew at the time. "Lets get a move on then." Kakashi ordered longsufferingly, turning around with his book in hand and making his way to the gate guard station so they could sign out.

The first leg of their journey was done in relative peace, Narutos chattering notwithstanding. It was nice to get out of the village officially, Tamashī mused. While she would admit that she did enjoy sneaking out under the cover of darkness to hunt down ronin to experiment on, being able to just saunter through the main gates without a lot of sneaking was a nice change of pace. She tilted her head back to watch the cloudless sky above, spreading out her admittedly mediocre chakra sensing abilities to watch for enemies.

There was two bodies parallel to the ground that felt vaguely watery about half a kilometre in front of them, near enough to the middle of the dirt road they walked upon. Tamashī discreetly rolled her eyes, unable to stop herself from the show of exasperation. It was sunny, there was no clouds and it hadn't rained in a week, the demon brothers must be getting pretty cocky with their missing-nin status to implement a plan so stupid.

Tamashī smoothly reached into her hip pouch and pulled out a metal ball roughly the size of a decent orange, palming it nonchalantly as they came up to the puddle. The ball was a sort of spring loaded _incarcerous,_ with the trigger for the spells release being the ending of a concealment jutsu/spell. It was a handy thing to have on hand, she thought to herself as she dropped it squarely in the middle of the puddle when she stepped over it. Tamashī was thinking of giving a few of the modified ones to Naruto for his birthday, because really, how often do you need to capture someone who is concealed with a jutsu? Not that often, funnily enough.

Kakashi had just cleared the puddle when the spell ball activated to the sound of rough voiced cursing. The group turned at the sound, all surprised except Tamashī, to see a pair of missing-nin from Mist cursing up a storm and trying to escape the ropes pinning them together. This lasted a moment until the brothers tore through the ropes with chakra augmented gauntlets.

"Feck." Tamashī voiced dully before hauling Tazuna behind her just as Kakashi was 'torn to shreds' by the serrated chain connecting the two gauntlets. Just like what happened last time. "Naruto! Defence position alpha! Sasuke! Offense sequence gemini!" She barked towards her teammates, listening to the tell tale popping of shadow clones being formed.

She and Sasuke darted forward as a mirror image of the other, down to the slightest movement. They moved in an arc towards their opponents, cutting off the wide movement they tried to utilise and reached into their thigh pouches for three shuriken each. The weapons were thrown with excellent accuracy, passing each other with the barest millimetre of space between them to bury into their targets, two pinning the chain to a tree, two in opposing shoulders and the last two slicing the masks on the demon brothers faces clean off.

"Damn they're ugly." Tamashī laughed recklessly as she threw a final kunai to secure the chain to the tree. A second thud half a moment after her kunai hit the wood indicated Sasuke had thought to secure the chain as well. Tamashī and Sasuke finished their manoeuvre by launching a flying kick into their opponents jaws, stunning the two long enough to tie them securly to the tree with the ninja wire hanging between them.

Tamashī took a moment to sense for Kakashi, noticing him in the trees and not making a move to rejoin them. Well, thought Tamashī, if he wasn't going to question the enemies, maybe she would get in some field experience for interrogation.

"Naruto," Tamashī started, not turning from the enemy and braking through the blondes daze, "make five more clones to secure the perimeter. Twenty feet in all directions, okay?"

"But, Tamashī... What about sensei?" He sounded scared and childlike, but Tamashī couldn't turn to comfort him just in case the brothers escaped their bonds.

"We can break down properly later, okay?" She said softly, not giving up their teachers ruse for the moment. "The mission comes first for now." It really killed her inside to say that.

Five simultaneous pops echoed behind her, signifying that Naruto would follow orders, at least for now. Sasuke came up beside her and gripped her shoulder in apparent comfort, both of them conveniently facing away from the spot of their senseis demise. She reached up with her opposing arm to pat his hand thankfully, giving it a squeeze before dropping it to her side again.

"We'll need to question them for their motives." Tamashī said quietly, reaching into her hip pouch and retrieving a bottle of clear liquid. She held it up to the fading sun, turning it slightly as she looked at it, as if looking for flaws. "This is veritraserum. It's something my family devised to extract the truth from captives. It would usually be used in tandem with an _obliviate_ , a memory eraser jutsu, but I don't think we'll need to wipe their minds of this encounter." She gripped the vial tightly in her fist, "I don't know if this will work properly, I've had no one to test it on." A lie, on both accounts, it won't work as it should and she had tested it on ronin. This failed batch of truth serum caused organ liquidation and severe agony, but it still made them speak.

A throat was cleared hesitantly behind them, "Are you okay, kids?" Ah, Tazuna.

"We have to be." Tamashī answered honestly, moving forward as she opened the vial to administer the correct dosage so a ninja wouldn't burn it off too quickly. Incidentally, this was half a vial each. One of them tried to bite her, but Tamashī, instinctively it seemed, kicked him in the crotch and quickly poured half the vial in when his mouth opened in silent pain.

"What are your birth names?" Tamashī kicked off the questioning, taking out the Konoha standard bingo book from her ever mysterious hip pouch.

"Gozu."

"Meizu."

They answered at the same time, leading to a little confusion on a returning Narutos part, but if Tamashī kept to simple questions their answers wouldn't differ too much.

"What rank are you?"

"B-rank chunin." It was kinda creepy actually, that they were more animated under the effects of the truth serum than before it. Though that might have been because their insides were liquidating as they spoke.

"Why did you attack us?"

"We were hired by a small man with a big moustache."

"Name of your contractor?"

"Gato."

"Why?"

"To kill the Master bridge builder, Tazuna"

"Welp, I've heard enough. Anyone who doesn't want to see me kill these two should probably turn away now." Tamashī said blandly as she put the bingo book back in her pouch. Her hand strayed to the long holster on her right thigh, idly playing with the button snap that concealed what was inside. Sasuke stayed standing beside her, but Tazuna and Naruto(along with all of his clones) turned to look in the other direction. A quiet snap sounded as she opened the holster, pulling out a fourteen inch long rod that resembled a solid stick of fresh blood and ended in a cruel point. She twirled it in her fingers for a moment, gazing at it with an unreadable expression.

Then, the stick was pointing directly at Gozu and Meizu, who in their drugged and agonized haze, froze at the rising levels of killing intent coming from the white haired girl in front of them. It was a terrifying sensation, like the hand of a lurking god just waiting to dish out fatal judgement. All of that KI was channelled into the stick in her hand, a sickly green light beginning to build up at the point. The girls eyes were half lidded, the light casting harsh shadows over her face, painting her as something ancient and wrathfull. Whispered words; too quiet to hear and light too bright to read off her lips, were spoken. Then the Demon Brothers knew no more.

" _Avada Kedavra_."

Even with the brightness of the decending sun, the flash of green light bathed everything in a sickly hue, before fading, leaving nothing behind but memories of death and pestilence.

Sasuke sucked in a shaky breath from his place beside her, drawing Tamashīs attention. "Hey, you alright?" She asked softly, resting her free hand on the side of his neck to feel his pulse. Her thumb rubbed subconscious circles on his jaw and he leaned into it without words as he nodded. "Are you sure?" She asked worriedly. Sasuke looked very pale and his skin was clammy.

"Yes, I'm fine." He answered quietly, making an aborted motion with his hand as if he wanted to rest it over her own.

"Alright," Tamashī murmured with a furrowed brow, dropping her hand and turning away to check on Naruto and Tazuna. Sasuke raised his hand to his neck when her back was turned, a blissed out expression on his face for a moment.

She probably shouldn't have used that particular spell, now that she's thinking about it. It usually had an adverse effect on the people around her, almost especially on ninjas though because they were sensitive to projected intents. When she spotted Naruto he was shaking and frozen, a light sheen of sweat coating his face. Tazuna actually looked fine, a little shaken from being so close to death, but otherwise nothing was wrong with him.

"Naruto, are you okay?" She wanted to pull him into a hug, but Naruto was surprisingly fragile about that sort of thing.

"Y-yeah, I'm okay. What was that though?!" He sounded surprised and anxious, his eyes were darting even as they focused on Tamashī standing in front of him.

"Yes I would like to know that, too." The deep voice of their sensei came from behind her, causing Naruto to give a start of surprise.

"It is truly weaponized killing intent. It utilises minute amounts of nature chakra to make the intent a physical force. It's classed as an S-rank assassination jutsu." Tamashī explained as she turned around to look at her other nephew-by-technicality. She couldn't tell if he was worried or disapproving, though he was probably both.

"We'll talk about that later. For now though, it has become apparent that this mission is not a C-rank. It's a B-rank at best and a high A-rank at worst." Kakashi stated blandly, turning to look at Tazuna who started sweating under the scrutiny. "We know who these two were after through means that will be explained later as well," he eyeballed Tamashī, but she gave no reaction other than staring back flatly. "You have endangered _my_ genin; the future military power of Konohagakure no Sato and lied about the ranking of this mission. I have every right to abandon this mission and leave you here." A dangerous flatness had entered his voice the more he spoke, and Tamashī had to hold back a coo when he had called them his.

"Sensei! We can't just abandon him now! We've come so far already! And it's getting dark!" Naruto shouted with his usual lack of filter or tact, the whine in his voice taking on a grating edge.

Tamashī shrugged when Kakashi looked at her, "I think we should set up camp for tonight and make a decision in the morning." Sasuke just nodded in agreement to Tamashīs plan, which was expected, ongoing weirdness of the occurrence aside. "Sensei, will I send a message back to the village? Or should it wait til sun-up?" Tamashī asked from where her head was bent towards Sasuke in quiet, one-sided conversation.

"Wait, it's better to send messages when you have a clear idea of what has to happen." Kakashi answered semi-regretfully, knowing that now that messages have been involved, they would be continuing with this possible A-ranked mission.

Tamashī nodded in acceptance and turned back to Sasuke, who was silently staring again. "Lets go collect firewood and some sort of food." She said as she worriedly took his still clammy hand. His pulse was back to normal now, but he was definitely still paler than usual, his skin looking off-white in the dying sunlight and a fine tremor running through his limbs.

Sasuke was glad Tamashī was paying attention to him, even more so when she grabbed his hand to lead him around. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about her since she transformed herself into an ethereal woman adorned in the finest of silks. If she was going to grow up to look like that, then he definitely wanted her help in repopulating his clan after his murderous brother was taken care off. The older version of Tamashī reminded him of his mother; regal and soft spoken, but with a certain type of viciousness that kept a trickle of fear constantly slipping down his spine. It gave him delightful shivers.

 _Another update! Seriously late but eh. Not much to be done about that. Also, it's short. I'd apologise but writers block is a cunt._ _I'll keep this short because it's 3am for me and things are starting to blur around the edges._ _A general shout out to everyone who reviewed, followed and favourited! You guys are great :) I'll get back to doing the more personal responses to reviews in the next chapter, for now I'm just too tired lol_ _Tell me what you enjoy about the story so far! Constructive criticism is an important factor for writers to improve, so don't be shy about any flaws my writing has but don't be mean about it y'know?_


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